I was recently reminded of Duck Duck Go, the search engine that does not “cookie”, track or keep records of your searches. I suggest you check out http://DuckDuckGo.com, especially if you don’t like seeing ads for things related to products and services for which you may have searched.

In the images below, note the nice clean appearance… the difference in looks between a page showing results of a Google search compared with a DuckDuckGo search.

Go beyond appearances – As I was completing a Quick Tech tip mailing, I double checked Evernote in my computer for notes I had tagged with Duck Duck Go. And I found a page that lists 12 Things DuckDuckGo Can Do that Google Can’t presented by NDTV Gadgets .

One thing that popped out for me was #3 on the list… a way to shorten URLs (web addresses). By putting in the long page link in the search box, starting with “shorten http: [and the rest of the long link]”, I got the following shortened URL – http://is.gd/1eClil which will bring you to the “12 Things” post. How cool is that!

NOTE: I also mentioned above how easy it was to go to Evernote in my computer to find the site with the now-shortened URL I’ve given you. Below is an image of the note as I found it. At the time I was on the above-shown page, I used Evernote’s Web Clipper to “clip” it to have for future reference in my computer, iPad and iPhone. In the screen shot below, you see the result of the now- clipped page in a note in my Evernote.

You can see in the image where I did the search for the note; where tags show up that I had labeled at the time of clipping; and a listing, on the left of the notes that came up when I did the search for “Duck Duck Go” in my Evernote. And, I was delighted to see that the live link to DuckDuckGo actually stayed with the clipped page.

To learn more about what is available when using Evernote, click on Kickstart Guide to Using Evernote for a listing of the contents – PDFs and Videos – and a special offer.